The following looks like it would be interesting, but unfortunately it’s not playing with English subs.
Only five films in the short film category of the Cannes Film Festival received critical acclaim. Their degree of accomplishment was of course high, but that’s not all. Living up to all the pre-screening chatter, “First Film”, a montage of 65,000 clips from 300 films, was staggering, but my personal favorite was “Play with Me”. The scene of the woman floating on water in the quiet Dutch air conjures up a skin-level “illusion” of melting into the scene. This is a film with an entirely new sensibility — the first time in a long time I just surrendered. Shown at Uplink’s new space (which prides itself in its new seats). As an aside: the SBK crew’s comments will give you a laugh. (
REALTOKYO)
It starts at Uplink X on July 31. You can watch a trailer here.
My new guilty pleasure right now is the single “I Sing, I Say” by Little. I rarely find anything interesting happening in the J-pop landscape these days, but there’s a nice breezy air to this that helps make the Summer heat just a bit more bearable (funny how music helps me fight the heat, but it’s true). Little was one of the MCs in the now defunct rap group Kick the Can Crew, a unit I really didn’t like at all. But this new solo track, featuring light raps over classic video-gaming samples, feels right. Another thing that probably makes the track interesting for me is the fact that the producer is DJ Fumiya of Rip Slyme (probably the only Japanese rap group that I can stand), who is the producer behind another guilty pleasure fave, Halcali. I’ll probably get tired of it quickly, but for now I’ll turn and watch the video when it pops up on SpaceShowerTV. You can listen to a sample of it here.
When I got to the station tonight after work, I was confronted by this big advertisement. According to the official site, seems like Nigo’s A Bathing Ape has now launched a line of condoms called Bape Cap.
Shot taken with the A5403CA mobile phone.
Last weekend’s ASAHI SHIMBUN sees an article on Takemoto Novala, author of the book SHIMOTSUMA MONOGATARI (English title is to be KAMIKAZE GIRLS), that was recently made into a film starring idol Fukada Kyoko (and Patrick quite liked it).
`It didn’t mean I wanted to become a girl. Simply put, I wasn’t interested in stuff for boys. I liked girlish things. Boyish things are sweaty, so I didn’t like them.’
NOVALA TAKEMOTO Writer
From the outside, it looks like an ordinary Tokyo apartment building. But if you find the right door, and if you are invited to enter, you immediately find yourself in a weird, wacky wonderland.
Christian Dior perfume tickles the nose and Bach the ears. Stuffed deer make themselves at home with their friends: a blond doll in a taffeta gown, Doraemon, a Hello Kitty clock and a seemingly uncountable number of other objects, some mundane, some startling.
This is helter-skelter in a 15-tatami mat room. Welcome to the world of novelist Novala Takemoto.
Read the rest of the article here. You can view a trailer of the SHIMOTSUMA MONOGATARI film adaptation at the official site.
Robert seems to be the master of describing evenings out, and here’s what he said about last Saturday night.
Last night I showed up late in Ikebukuro for a little shindig that Jean Snow threw for his friends at Pause. Everyone was there: Mr. Snow from around the way, Audrey from OK FRED, Momus from Amitabha, Midori from Geba, Nao from Yokohama, and of course your truly. Conversation topics that I was privy to (the Francophiles were in full-effect, and there were some English and Japanese snatches here and there) included: Digiki’s recent digital martyrdoms, Chinese spirits (the drinkable kind), why I have a ‘grunge look’ according to Nick, the square-peg-in-a-round-holeness of VICE in Japan, who does cocaine in TKO, how our ‘Japanese selves’ differ from our other selves, game theory and mah-jong, highlights and horror stories of China, Jean’s comments on the Middle Kingdom, POLE 3, Audrey’s recent art outings, being an ‘indi kid’ in Japan, the recently hot CG of very fucked up ski-jumping, omiyage, Shanghai babies, the ’gay disco’ folders that must be extant on the hard disks of ‘serious sound artists’ all over the world, and so on. Thanks Jean! Promise to treat you to drinks next time!
I must apologize to the others for the “out of the ordinary” (or maybe it’s the other times I was there that was out of the ordinary) noise at Mashman’s Cafe, where we went for a bite to eat before heading out to Pause. Hot, noisy, with a horrible selection of music; I know I won’t be going there again in the near future.
I just picked up the new issue of PAPER SKY (10), although there’s still no mention of it on their site. The cover story hits close to home as it covers the city of Toronto (in case you didn’t know, I’m Canadian), with a focus on its cosmopolitan nature. Reminds me also that I still haven’t been to the PAPER SKY and Planet 3rd produced BOOK246 cafe and bookstore yet. I might try and go tomorrow, and if not then, there’s always my 3 weeks of holidays that start in one week’s time.
And while on the subject of Toronto, the latest issue of Canadian architecture/design magazine AZURE has a big feature on the new airport.
At Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport, the new Terminal 1 is a building with citylike texture, diversity and power. Designed by a team of architects co-ordinated by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Toronto’s Adamson Associates, with input from Canadian architect Moshe Safdie, the arced expanse is a point of departure, a frenzied meeting place and a giant art gallery all in one.
For those interested in this latest issue of PAPER SKY, as far as I know (according to their outdated English website), they do have a US edition of the magazine now, so it should be readily available in the near future.
Long article on when and how Ikea will be making its return to the Japanese market (which seems to be in 2006). It made a retreat in 1986 after completely flopping in Japan.
Seems like Apple won’t be having any trouble selling their iPod Minis in Japan.
Thousands of people lined up outside electronics stores in Japan on Saturday as Apple Computer launched sales of its iPod Mini digital music player.
About 1,500 people were lined up outside Apple’s store in Tokyo’s Ginza district before the store opened at 10 a.m. Tens of thousands of the devices have already reportedly been reserved by customers.
The rest of the MDN article is here.
Some cool ads that Jesper created for Tokyo Style in Gothenburg. I love the use of Brockmann figures for models. Also, the TSiG blogs should be launching very, very soon, so stay tuned for more news on that. And be sure to check out the updated site for Jesper’s design company, Next Century Modern. They’re about to embark on some very exciting retail adventures.
It’s just been announced on Robert’s blog that the launch party for the fourth issue of OK FRED will be happening August 21 at the NTT InterCommunication Center, and there will be performances by him and Momus (and sound art by Mathieu Briand). The party is free, and it will be from 6 to 9.
It used to be fairly rare for Japanese to buy pets, but in recent years even space-crammed inner city dwellers have started buying cats and dogs in droves. Now… condominium resident pet owners are discovering that dealing with their animals’ sexual cravings is a little more difficult than merely hurling a bucket of water when Rover gets randy.
Gori-chan is the name a 47-year-old housewife has given to the stuffed toy gorilla her 8-year-old male miniature dachshund Juri can’t do without. “Gori-chan is our little boy Juri’s sex object… We’ll go for a walk during the mating season and Juri gets so excited when he meets a female dog, when we get home he goes wild until we bring Gori-chan out. It’s a fairly big toy, so we normally keep Gori-chan in a spare room, but Juri barks like mad until we let him into the room. As soon as we open the door, he races in and starts humping away on Gori-chan, not stopping until he’s ejaculated.
“Gori-chan is like Juri’s love doll.”
Full article here. Link via Die Puny Humans.
Apple’s large retail store in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district will be holding a special iPod mini launch event this Saturday, July 24. “Join us this Saturday at 10:00 a.m. and be the first to get the new iPod mini. The first 1,000 customers in line get a free commemorative t-shirt. Plus, listen to DJs spinning tunes on iPod, music demonstrations and free classes throughout the day.” (
MacMinute)
Link to the Apple Store Ginza.
Nao is reading a book by Terayama Shuji (sorry, I don’t have the title), and she was describing to me the following, which I found quite interesting. He writes that although ramen and “curry and rice” are both loved by students and salarymen in Japan, he believes that 2 groups exist. The “curry and rice” men are more apt to maintain the status quo, and tend to be conservative. The ramen men (that’s me), on the other hand, are frustrated types (I’m not sure here exactly what she meant by this though), and tend to be revolutionary. Terayama equates “curry and rice” to concepts like home, mother, and wife, while ramen is more town/city.
I’m more into ramen (of course), and although I’m not sure if I’m frustrated or revolutionary, I can say that I’m definitely a city boy.
Since there seems to be a demand for it, I’ve decided to start taking orders for the Japanese magazines I mention on this site (or any Japanese magazine for that matter). If interested, contact me with what you want, and your postal address, and I’ll let you know how much it’ll cost, and send it as soon as I get a PayPal payment (which you can do by clicking on the PayPal icon in the sidebar). I’ll charge the cover price of the magazine, plus the exact shipping (for example, an issue of ART iT sent to North America or Europe is 960 yen), and a 400 yen on top of that (for my trouble, cost of envelope, and whatever I lose in the exchange and PayPal transfers).
Update: I’ve just realized that PayPal takes a cut of every transfer made to me, so I’m going to have to add 600 yen to the cost of the magazine and shipping to make it work. Also, here’s a link to the Japanese post office page with all the info on shipping costs.
Note: The magazine service has been temporarily suspended.
Jean Snow is a contributor to 
He will be contributing to the upcoming fifth editions of 
